As first reported Saturday by Alex Speier of WEEI, Boston has released the 37-year-old Watanabe, who is now a free agent and will presumably attempt to latch on with a different MLB team. He yielded two runs in three Grapefruit League innings with the Sox.

Watanabe was (or is) trying to break into the majors after 13 seasons in Nippon Professional Baseball, during which he compiled a 3.65 ERA and 1.235 WHIP in 1,578 1/3 frames for the Chiba Lotte Marines.

You know for a minor league deal I wouldn’t mind if they gave the guy a shot, not at all.

proudlycanadian - Mar 30, 2014 at 12:32 PM

He could probably make more money in Japan than he could on a minor league deal; however, it appears that he might just want to give North America a try.

ez4u2sa - Mar 30, 2014 at 11:29 AM

The Sox have depth with their pitchers so I’m surprised they bothered at all with this guy. Given the number of teams the are desperate for pitching, like the Yankees or the Mets, he’ll catch on somewhere.